Have you ever been playing one of your favorite flash games or casual games on your computer, and thought how much more fun it would be if you had a gamepad or other console style controller? If so, or if you’ve had any similar ideas, then Wanderplayer can fill that void in your life for no charge whatsoever.
Wanderplayer is a free program that lets you turn your Android or iOS device into a wireless game controller.It’s currently in open Beta mode but already it is shaping up to be a great free program and app.
It works with tons of games, with more on the way, and even finds the games for you automatically!
There are two simple parts to Wanderplayer, and they function pretty seamlessly. The first part is a Windows or Mac OS program that runs quietly in the background of your computer’s normal operations. The other part runs on your Android or iPhone as an app. When you want to play a game, simply open the app on your phone, click the “Play” tab at the bottom and select a game. Wanderplayer will connect to the program on your computer, tell it to open your web browser, and start the game for you. At the same time, it fills the screen of your phone with control options appropriate to the game you have selected. For example, if you choose Street Fighter, when the game opens on your computer’s web browser, the screen of your phone will show a D-pad on the left and on the right will be four colored buttons marked A, B, etc. Using these on-screen buttons, you’ll control your Street Fighter character (or whatever is appropriate for the game you’ve chosen) without having to lean forward over the keyboard. In fact, you can play from anywhere you want. The phone and the computer are connected to the same wi-fi network so there doesn’t even have to be a line of sight between the controller and the computer.
One of the nicest things about Wanderplayer is the fact that it has so many games available right from the app’s “Play” menu, rather than forcing you to go find games on your own. I have personally seen a couple of attempts at a system like this one before, but never to any degree of real success. Wanderplayer seems to have hit the nail on the head with this effort. The two programs communicate efficiently and effortlessly as far as the user is concerned. There’s no difficult setup process, no long strings of digits to transfer from menu to menu, just a short three step process that only has to be done once. Once that process has been completed, you’ll find a huge list of games on the menu for Wanderplayer’s mobile app. As most of the functions of Wanderplayer are controlled or activated through the mobile app program, you won’t need to worry about switching back and forth between the computer and the phone.
The list of games, as mentioned, that Wanderplayer offers you is pretty huge. Every day, the Wanderplayer team discusses different games to add to the available list, so you’re likely to see a lot of variety in what’s available on a day to day basis. The good news there is that you’re not likely to get bored soon, with an ever-changing menu. Each game is chosen with the specific idea in mind that it will work well with the Wanderplayer control system. They take into account things like how easy it is to see the graphics from far away to things like how many different control functions have to be used at the same time.
Each game is also categorized according to the basic control style and the genre of the game. Simple games that require very little in the way of complex controls will be represented by a particular icon, and games that require a motion detection circuit in your phone will show another icon. As Wanderplayer is currently in Beta, these icons are changing at the moment so it wouldn’t be useful to post the current definitions here, but it is worth noting because it shows a dedication to organization and making the program user-friendly, on the part of the developers. It’s also worth noting that they have a semi-intelligent chatbot available on their website to help you with basic questions you may have, which is just one more flag of a great team behind the product. If this trend continues, I think we’ll see Wanderplayer blossom into one of the best free apps out there.
[Thanks for reader Panzer for the tip about Wanderplayer]
Get Wanderplayer here
Note: This review is specific to the Android version of Wanderplayer’s mobile app. There may be significant or cosmetic differences between this review and the iOS mobile app.
